


There's a whole Life in knowing that the Sun is there

by anightskyperson



Series: Do we simply stare at what's horrible (and forgive it)? [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Depression, Hope, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27041431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anightskyperson/pseuds/anightskyperson
Summary: I hope someone reads this and takes it to heart. I hope someone reads this and makes it real.
Series: Do we simply stare at what's horrible (and forgive it)? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719043
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	There's a whole Life in knowing that the Sun is there

Hi everyone.

I know you probably expect another chapter to this series, some sort of continuation to what I started. Instead, you'll get a form of closure, and, if I do my job right, you'll leave with a desire for change.

As you probably can see from reading the first chapter, I know depression. I know a lot of you sought out a work that understood how you feel, that comforts you and makes you feel less alone. A text that provides you with what you already know, that feels familiar and safe and _easy_.

I want to tell you why I can't give that to you anymore.

For too long, I have been suffering from serious bouts of depression- six or more years, I believe. Ever since I turned twelve or thirteen, I knew there was something deeply and fundementally wrong about how the world made me feel.

Stoically, I lived through it. I never wanted any help. I wanted to go through this alone, I would hope for it to go away on its own and heroically suffer my way through everyday life.

I almost didn't make it. I tried to kill myself twice.

For a very long time, I felt stuck. Everything seemed to inevitably end _all the time_ , and the feeling never stopped, everything moved in circles, and I didn't have a way out.

I would do anything to get a break from feeling awful, even if it meant never to feel anything again.

Trust me, I know how it feels. I know how it feels to desperately want a way out but also to not want help because help would mean to stop being depressed, and you don't want to stop feeling depressed because it's safe, it what you have known for almost all your life, it's familiar. It's comforting. 

I always felt like depression was all I consisted of. It consumed me, it consumerd every single day of my life, it made me miserable but it was all I knew. 

I was scared of recovery because I thought depression was all I had.

This is wrong.

If you're reading this and see yourself in my story in any way, please know that you are so much more than your illness. You are sick, you are seriously ill and there is a way out. There is _always_ a way out, even though you truly don't believe it right now.

Shortly after writing the first chapter of this fic, my friends finally got me to go to therapy. They are the reason I am still alive today. I was very sick, my brain wasn't working properly and they made sure I was getting professional help even though I absolutely despised the very idea of it.

After my first 10 minutes at the therapist's, she said I probably need to be on medication and recommend a psychiatrist who, after our first session, prescribed Citalopram.

It saved my life. 

As with everything in my recovery process so far, I was very reluctant to the idea of starting to take medication because I was terrified of the side effects. I would spend five hours a day reading through horrifying entries on medication forums and almost decided that treatment wasn't for me before even starting it.

I only ended up taking my pills because it was the one last option I had in life. I thought, if I would experience extreme weight gain, I could simply kill myself. This is wrong for a lot of reasons, but that was where my mind was at.

I have been taking Citalopram for a good month now, and I haven't had any side effects except for nausea on the first day. That's it. 

I feel like a person again. I feel what is supposed to be the healthy 'normal' and it is so good, so relieving, so absolutely weightless that I could cry every day thinking about how lucky I feel. I'm really glad I took the chance and tried medication, or treatment in general, because now I genuinely want to be better, I want to feel like this all the time and I don't miss depression one bit. 

Please understand that what you might feel right now is not normal, that there is a whole other life full of opportunity and light and laughter and feeling good and not missing being sad all the time only a few steps away.

Please give yourself a fighting chance.

Please don't give up on yourself before your life truly begins. 

I hope you understand why I can't finish the work right now. I just can't afford to go back to that old mindset of mine at the moment. So much depends on being content right now. I desperately don't want to lose this.

This being said, I might continue the work in the future and write about Peter's recovery, because he surely deserves it simply by existing in some form out there.

Just know that he is resting right now, as am I, as should you too.

Recovery isn't all that easy, and this is only the beginning, but at least I can fight this fight under fair circumstances. It's far from over, and I didn't come for a fight, but I deserve to fight it 'till the end.

I am not out of the woods yet. But I am in the woods, and it's beautiful.

I hope you can see it, too.

-

We have not touched the stars,  
nor are we forgiven,  
which brings us back  
to the hero's shoulders and the  
gentleness that comes,  
not from the absence of violence,  
but despite the abundance of it.

We have been very brave, we have wanted to know  
the worst, wanted the curtain to be lifted  
from our eyes.  
But what happens after we get up the ladder? Do we simply stare at what's horrible and forgive it?  
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

(Excerpts of 'Snow and Dirty Rain' by Richard Siken)


End file.
